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Reddit Sues Perplexity AI and Data Firms Over Alleged Unauthorized Scraping

By  |  October 22, 2025
Reddit, ,Confidential, , Draft Registration, SEC, IPO

Reddit has filed a lawsuit against Perplexity AI Inc. and three other companies, accusing them of unlawfully harvesting data from its platform without consent—a move that underscores the intensifying battle over access to valuable online content in the fast-growing artificial intelligence sector, according to Bloomberg.

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    The complaint, submitted Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, names data-scraping firms Oxylabs UAB, AWMProxy, and SerpApi. The suit alleges these companies have been extracting Reddit content through Google search results and reselling it to third parties. Perplexity AI is accused of purchasing that data from at least one of those entities, per Bloomberg.

    Reddit is seeking financial compensation as well as an injunction to halt what it claims is unauthorized data collection and use in violation of U.S. copyright law. Shares of Reddit, based in San Francisco, reportedly dropped 6.5% in afternoon trading in New York following news of the suit, according to Bloomberg.

    The company’s extensive repository of user-generated discussions has become a highly sought-after resource as AI developers race to train systems on real human interactions and opinions. Reddit has already secured licensing deals with OpenAI and Google, allowing them to use its data for AI training. However, it continues to pursue legal action against others it believes are exploiting its data without proper authorization.

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    Related: Reddit Files Suit Against Anthropic Over Alleged Data Misuse for AI Training

    Earlier this year, Reddit also filed a lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic, alleging similar scraping practices.

    Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, told Bloomberg that “AI companies are locked in an arms race for quality human content — and that pressure has fueled an industrial-scale ‘data laundering’ economy.” He emphasized that Reddit’s vast archive of conversations makes it an attractive target for companies seeking to train AI systems on human-generated material.

    Perplexity’s spokesperson Beejoli Shah said the company had not yet received the lawsuit but asserted that it would “fight vigorously for users’ rights to freely and fairly access public knowledge.” Shah added that Perplexity’s approach is “principled and responsible” as it aims to provide accurate AI-generated answers.

    Representatives for SerpApi and Oxylabs declined to comment, while AWMProxy, identified in the filing as a Russian company, could not be reached, according to Bloomberg.

    The case, filed under Reddit Inc. v. SerpApi LLC, 25-cv-08736, is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

    Source: Bloomberg